Enough of waiting. Equality: now!
Women's feminist organizations CESI, Babe!, Domine, Delfin and the Center for Civic Initiatives - CGI organized press conferences on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, simultaneously in four cities - Zagreb, Split, Pakrac and Poreč. At the conferences, a request was made to political parties to respect the Gender Equality Act in the upcoming local elections and to nominate at least 40% women as candidates, and to take into account the interests and needs of women when drafting their election programs.
"Although according to the interpretation of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian Parliament, no fines will be levied in these elections if the quota is not respected, we believe that it is the democratic duty of political parties to ensure equal participation of women on electoral lists. The issue of women's participation in decision-making is a civilizational issue, we cannot talk about a democracy from which half of the population is excluded," representatives of women's feminist organizations emphasized at press conferences.
Unfortunately, women in Croatia do not participate sufficiently in political life. Since 2000, only 20 percent of women have been elected to the Croatian Parliament, and after the last local elections, the share of women in county assemblies and city councils is also around 20 percent, while at the municipal council level, women's representation is only 12 percent. In 2009, one female county prefect was elected out of a total of 20 elected county prefects, 6 female mayors out of 127 elected mayors, and 21 female mayors out of 429 mayoral positions.
The Ministry of Agriculture's research "101 Questions for Rural Women" showed that the position of women in rural areas is extremely difficult, that they suffer violence, that there is a high level of unemployment and thus economic dependence, that health services are not sufficiently accessible to them and that they perform most of the tasks related to the family and children themselves. In the Women's Platform, which was developed for the 2011 parliamentary elections, women specifically highlighted the issue of respecting women's human rights, implementing anti-discrimination laws, ensuring effective support for women victims of violence, gender-sensitive education, ensuring services that will enable the reconciliation of professional and family life, and improving the position of women on the labor market as basic demands. The conferences therefore highlighted the need for political parties at the local level to respect the interests and needs of women and to include them in their election programs so that the development of local communities would benefit all citizens.
Women's feminist organizations CESI, Babe!, Domine, Delfin and the Center for Civic Initiatives - CGI continuously conduct campaigns to improve women's participation in political life before each election, and the campaign for these local elections began with the Ravnopravne! conference held in October 2012, at which more than 60 participants from civil society organizations, county gender equality commissions, state institutions and political parties emphasized the need to amend electoral legislation related to women's participation in representative bodies.
"It is necessary to amend the electoral law in such a way that electoral commissions at all levels do not accept lists that do not respect the clause of balanced representation of women and men, and to introduce the obligation of a shutter system, that is, to define the position of persons on the list in such a way that male and female candidates are on the list alternately," it was said at a press conference.
The representatives of the organizations announced that an analysis of the election lists will be made and they will organize the traditional Pillar of Shame action for those parties that did not run for at least 40% women on the candidate lists.
Contacts: Zagreb: Tajana Broz, 091 75 22 375, tajana.broz@cesi.hr & Senka Sekulić-Rebić, 01 4663 666 senka@babe.hr Split: Mirjana Kučer, 091 571 7164, domine@inet.hr Poreč: Natasa Vajagic, 099 542 2241, natasa.vajagic@cgiporec.hr Pakrac: Mirjana Bilopavlović, 098 161 7623, delfin.zamir@gmail.com
